Who was Eiko Ando? She must have had worthwhile credentials to have landed a leading role in a film such as this, yet she seems to have done no other acting work either before or since. Who is this mystery woman? Is she still alive? There is an Eiko Ando presently living in San Francisco, age approximately 76. Could that be her?
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sounds like one of those family affairs where
a lot of politics get in the way of freedom
and justice on a two way highway
I found this on Wikipedia. I don't think she is the same one as lived in San Francisco but you never know.
Eiko Ando (born May 8, 1934; first name pronounced "Ay - eeko") was a Japanese actress best known for appearing opposite John Wayne in The Barbarian and the Geisha in 1958.
Ando was born in Harbin, in northeastern China, to a Japanese industrialist. When the Communist took over the family fled back to Japan. After her father died in 1953 she went to work as a singer and then burlesque dancer. At the time of filming The Barbarian and the Geisha she was 5-feet, 7-inches tall and weighed 115 pounds. When director John Huston was looking for an actress for the part of Okichi, a friend of Ando's who worked in the Tokyo office of 20th Century-Fox recommended Ando to Houston. Once Huston saw her, after testing 33 girls, he and producer Eugene Frenke were done looking, mainly because of her height over the other girls.[1][2]